Welcome to the first issue of the year — and it's a genuinely busy one. Six separate mandates across four continents all take effect on 1 January. Here's the roundup, with a link to each government's own portal so you can verify anything directly at the source rather than taking our summary on faith.
🇧🇪 Belgium — mandatory B2B e-invoicing via Peppol
Structured e-invoicing is now mandatory for domestic B2B transactions between Belgian VAT-registered businesses, using Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 / EN 16931. PDF and paper invoices no longer qualify as of today. A three-month administrative tolerance period runs until 1 April, after which a progressive penalty regime (€1,500 / €3,000 / €5,000 per infraction) applies — so this window is genuinely worth using to close any remaining gaps, not just to wait it out.
🔗 Official source: EU Digital Building Blocks — Belgium
🇲🇾 Malaysia — MyInvois Phase 4 begins
Businesses with annual turnover between RM1 million and RM5 million enter the mandate today, with a relaxation period on submission-error penalties running through to the end of 2027. Individual e-invoices above RM10,000 are now mandatory — consolidated invoicing is no longer permitted for amounts at that level.
🔗 Official source: LHDN — MyInvois / e-Invoice
🇧🇷 Brazil — CBS/IBS test fields required
As Brazil's dual-VAT reform begins, electronic tax documents (NF-e, NFC-e, NFS-e) must now include the new CBS and IBS fields at test rates of 0.9% and 0.1% respectively. There's no financial impact yet at these test rates, but the legal obligation to include the data correctly already applies — and validation tightens considerably from April.
🔗 Official source: Portal Nacional da NF-e (SEFAZ)
🇲🇽 Mexico — 2026 tax reform takes effect
SAT's enforcement powers strengthen from today, adding stricter authenticity checks and — notably — new criminal liability for false or simulated CFDIs. This is a meaningful escalation from the previous purely administrative penalty framework. Worth reviewing your defense documentation and cancellation procedures now, given SAT can request supporting evidence within just 5 business days.
🔗 Official source: SAT — Servicio de Administración Tributaria
🇳🇿 New Zealand — high-volume government agencies must send and receive e-invoices
Agencies processing more than 2,000 domestic trade invoices annually must now be fully capable of both sending and receiving structured e-invoices — using the PINT A-NZ format, mandatory for government e-invoicing since May 2025 — and must pay 95% of them within 5 business days. If you supply an agency at this volume, this is the moment payment terms should actually start improving.
🔗 Official source: einvoicing.govt.nz — MBIE
🇭🇷 Croatia — Fiskalizacija 2.0 goes live
Croatia's biggest e-invoicing reform yet: structured issuance, receipt, and real-time e-reporting are now mandatory for all VAT-registered, Croatian-established taxpayers — layered on top of the B2G mandate already in force since 2019. This includes a 5-day buyer-side fiscalization workflow and monthly e-reporting by the 20th of each month, plus an 11-year archiving requirement for original XML invoices.
🔗 Official source: Porezna uprava (Croatian Tax Administration)
What this means for your team: if you operate in any of these six markets, this is the moment to confirm — not assume — that whatever went live over the holidays is actually working correctly in production, not just configured and left untested.
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